You've been on the holiday to end all holidays, captured hours of stunning footage and now it's time to do something with it. Great, the boring bit. While GoPros are brilliant bits of kit, turning all that raw footage into something shareable, memorable and entertaining can be a bit of a chore. Well, at least it used to be.

From smarter AI to simple shortcuts, there are loads of GoPro editing tips and tricks to help you dodge the hassle and turn your raw footage into an internet-breaking masterpiece in a matter of minutes.

Sure, you might have gathered 3 and a half hours of footage, but it's that single 15-second clip of your mate stacking it, or the 30 seconds of your epic make that you really want to share, right? Well that's fine, don't be afraid to cut the clutter and create a video of what people want to see, and only that. Seriously, your mates will thank you.

There's a simple editing trick to this too: ditch your traditional software and get app-happy instead. Downloading the GoPro smartphone app will let you stream your video direct from your camera, no transfers needed. While watching your footage, clicking on the scissors icon will give you the chance to cut a 5, 15 or 30-second clip. That's it. You can slide the edit frame along your timeline for the perfect cut and then share to the likes of Instagram or Facebook with a single click, it's that easy.

Scrubbing through a lengthy video is a great way to get to the action in double quick fashion. Unless you're careful though it's all too easy to storm past the clip and end up looking at the boring bit at the end of your raw footage where you forgot to turn the camera off. It doesn't need to be like that.

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Instead of just dragging the timeline left and right, a prolonged press will extend the time marker, letting you scroll seconds rather than minutes at a time. Now you can make sure you're saving time while also getting an insight into exactly what you've captured.

Editing isn't just about videos – stills can enhance your highlights or populate your Facebook page even if you forgot to set your GoPro to stills mode while bombing down a mountain or strolling around your holiday destination.

How? Well, once you've synced your smartphone to your camera via the free-to-download GoPro app, hitting the media option will let you view your captured content on your smartphone screen. Now, while in a video, simply hitting the icon that looks like a picture frame with an up arrow will offer you the chance to capture individual high-res stills. Pausing the content, this feature will also let you swipe through the vid frame-by-frame so you know you're getting the perfect snap.

While it's the visuals that ultimately make a video, there's nothing that can bring a GoPro edit together better than the right soundtrack. Switching up tunes can have a big effect on the overall tone of the video, and you shouldn't be afraid of trying different tracks and giving them all a go before committing to a final song.

That's according to GoPro's Senior Vice President of Software & Services, Charles "CJ" Prober, who advises: "If you don't like the music, pick a different song and preview the way the video will look with that song before adding it. When you find the song you like, you just add it to the video and you're done."

While dragging and dropping new tracks into an edit using the desktop-locked GoPro Studio is easy enough, you don't need a PC to enjoy this feature. The GoPro owned Splice gives you comprehensive editing options on your smartphone, with hundreds of pre-installed tracks able to be bolstered with your own iTunes imports. In the shiny new GoPro Desktop Editor, set to drop this autumn, this will get even easier, with a sidebar letting you preview footage in real time as you sample and drag new tracks over it. Bonus.

Once you've nailed the soundtrack, it's time to make sure you're hitting the beats, literally. The best way to really add a bit of impact and emotion to your edit is by timing the cuts and transitions to the beats in the music. This works especially well if you're mixing in a bit of slow-mo content with a deep, moody soundtrack.

"You're trying to sync up the moments in your video to music," CJ suggests. This is easier than it might sound too. The GoPro Studio and Splice app show you the intonations of your audio track just below the clips timeline. See a big spike in your audio track? Good, put a cut on it and marvel as your video starts to instantly look a whole lot more professional.

6. FORGET THE INS AND OUTS

Spending an hour and a half shaving fractions of a second off the start and end of every clip you're adding to your edit might appease the micromanager in you, but it's not going to make a difference to your overall results. It's the action points that really matter, not the precise cuts surrounding them.

"It turns out that if you're selecting the moment of the video that's most relevant to you, the in and out points aren't so relevant," GoPro's software head told us. "Most of the time, as long as you're picking the moment, you don't have to select the points." There you go, that's 45 minutes saved.

One of your GoPro's best features is that it lets you drop highlight tags at the push of a button. These simply put a marker within the video's timecode after something you really want to look back on. Not only does this save endless scrolling through boring build-up, it saves you having to sit through the tedious parts of video playback.

Depending on the GoPro you've got, how you drop a highlight tag will vary, but involve just hitting a single button or two. Stumped as to how to save yourself endless editing headaches? Check out your specific camera's guide for advice on highlights help.

Apps and easy edits are all well and good, but sometimes you'll want a little bit more. That's where GoPro Studio and its bulging bag of tricks come in. One of the best editing tools here that will transform your edit from generic video to shareable masterpiece, is the slow-mo. C'mon, who doesn't love a well-timed slow-mo?

You can do this on your mobile too thanks to the GoPro-owned editing app, Splice. Once you've imported your desired video, tapping 'Edit Video' on your clip of choice will throw up dozens of editing options. Hitting the button that looks like a car's speedo (third from the left) will let you alter the speed of the clip, taking it any where from a super slow 0.2x normal speed, to a super speedy 2x.

Like the idea of all of the above, but would still rather outsource your editing? Fine, you got it. If you push a bunch of stills and video clips into the GoPro-owned Quik app, you can hand control over and let the machines pull you together an instant highlights package.

Using all manner of wonderful algorithms, Quik can edit your clips together, merging still and moving images into a single seamless video. It will throw in filters, transitions and a soundtrack and even put the cuts on the beats of the music for a more impactful video. Don't like the result? You can always tweak any of the elements yourself. The video above is one Quik made for us.